WE'VE finally given liberals a war against
fundamentalism, and they don't want to fight it.
They would, except it would put them on the
same side as the United States.

With the media suffering from fainting spells,
the country is being run by people who can
splice cables and land jets on ships in the dark
of night. These are men, a subspecies of
Americans heretofore invisible to the elites. But
now the elites are complaining that the men
aren't working fast enough.

Not exactly smashing stereotypes of liberals as
mincing pantywaists, the left's entire
contribution to the war effort thus far has been
to whine. In lieu of a military response against
terrorists abroad and security precautions at
home, liberals would like to get the whole thing
over with and just throw Jerry Falwell in jail.

Walter Cronkite, better known as president of
the Ho Chi Minh Veneration Society, has
compared the Rev. Falwell to the Taliban. In
response to Falwell's comment that gay
marriage and abortion on demand may not have
warmed the heart of the Almighty, Cronkite
proclaimed it "the most abominable thing I've
ever heard."

Showing the dispassion and critical judgment
that earned him the moniker "the most pious
blowhard in America," this self-serving,
multimillionaire Martha's Vineyard boob
accused Falwell of "worshipping the same God
as the people who bombed the Trade Center
and the Pentagon."

Liberals compare Jerry Falwell to the Taliban,
but then are furious with George Bush for not
being Jesus Christ. Evidently, what a president
is supposed to do when the girls are scared is
develop complete omniscience and
omnipotence. Thus, the media repeatedly
expound upon the proposition that what Bush
should have done in response to the anthrax
mailings is: Instantly produce the culprits and
put an end to this madness!

The New York Times has been issuing daily
harangues on this point. The cover story of last
Sunday's Week in Review section ("Efforts to
Calm the Nation's Fears Spin Out of Control")
lectured Bush: "People in the grip of fear want
information that holds up, not spin control."

Men are out in the driving rain trying to change
a tire, while the womenfolk sit in a warm
roadside cafe demanding to know what's taking
so long. Just pipe down! The men are working
as fast as they can.

In fact, no one is in the "grip of fear" over
anthrax except the media and their most gullible
targets, liberal women. Liberal soccer moms are
precisely as likely to receive anthrax in the mail
as to develop a capacity for linear thinking. But
the media are working overtime to create a
Princess Di-like hysteria in Manhattan suburbs.

Every death, including the thousands murdered
in the womb every day, is sad. But let's not
forget that the mass mailing of anthrax spores
has killed only four people so far. These are
tragic occurrences, as are the deaths from car
accidents, drowning and fire since the attack. So
far, the anthrax mailings don't hold a candle to
the slaughter of 9-11.

But the Times is furious with Bush every single
moment he delays in bringing back the halcyon
days when liberals could attend Calvin Klein
fashion shows free of anxiety. "Again and again,
in recent weeks, administration officials tried to
reassure the public; again and again, the
situation proved more serious than the officials
had suggested."

It seems that a more soothing response to a
bio-terrorism scare would be for the
administration to have G-d-like omniscience
about the anthrax mailings, including predicting
all future mailings.

Frank "No, No, Nanette!" Rich recently emitted
an interminable screech on the op-ed page of
The New York Times denouncing the Bush
administration for not solving the anthrax cases
already: "The most highly trumpeted
breakthrough in the hunt for anthrax terrorists -
Tom Ridge's announcement that 'the site where
the letters were mailed' had been found in New
Jersey - proved a dead end."

As Irish playwright Brendan Behan said: "Critics
are like eunuchs in a harem: They know how it's
done, they've seen it done every day, but they're
unable to do it themselves." (It's no surprise
Rich is afraid of the mail: He's afraid of me. Just
last night, he refused to be in the "Politically
Incorrect" greenroom with me.)

Go listen to a Rodgers and Hammerstein sound
track and try to stay calm, Frank. Patriotic
Americans are doing their best to protect theater
critics quaking in their Upper West Side
redoubts.

Maureen Dowd, another hysterical Times
columnist, is still indignant that George Bush
wouldn't have asked her to the prom. "Polo at
Yale is a bit different than the Afghan version,"
she sniffed. Three weeks into the war and she's
already calling it "Operation Quagmire."

Women - and I don't mean to limit that to the
biological sense - always become hysterical at
the first sign of trouble. They have no capacity
to solve problems, so instead they fret. But
despite the fearful fifth columnists whiling
away the war naysaying America's response, we
will win this war.